Lebai dok sibuk juai agama...

Lebai dok sibuk juai agama....

 

Stop PAS now before it is too late...

Recent actions by PAS politicians on the sale of alcohol and the prohibition of lotteries are a potent reminder that PAS has nothing to offer Malaysians other than an intolerant, bigoted, narrow-minded sectarian state led by small-minded men with an even smaller vision for Malaysia. Make no mistake; it’s not about alcohol or gambling but about a grand strategy to impose upon the nation a dark and sectarian model where supercilious religious leaders police public morals, decide what we can and cannot do, how we dress, how we worship and what we read or watch. It goes beyond anything seen in other Muslim countries save for Iran where mullahs rule and basic human rights are trampled underfoot.

Now that it has finally acquired a measure of federal power, PAS is showing its true colours. Banning alcohol, needlessly inciting religious discord over the name of a brand of whiskey or banning lotteries are but low-hanging fruits. More drastic measures will surely follow. The trouble with playing the religious and racial card is you can’t stop; you have to keep upping the ante to grab attention, to stay relevant. It won’t end until they turn Malaysia into a state where bigotry, racism and discrimination become the new normal. And then they’ll turn on their fellow Muslims for not being Muslim enough. If they succeed, Malaysia is finished.

For this reason, I have always maintained that PAS – especially under its current leader, Abdul Hadi Awang – is the most dangerous political party in the country. Its ideology is completely incompatible with the Federal Constitution, its vision for Malaysia utterly contrary to that of our founding fathers. It has a long track record of denigrating other religions, discriminating against ethnic minorities and pushing hate and intolerance at every turn.

Furthermore, its leaders both at the federal and state level have neither the expertise nor even the inclination to properly govern. They don’t even have clean drinking water in Kelantan, a state where PAS has held sway for a good many years. A PAS government will quickly plunge Malaysia into the chasm of a failed state.

The Malacca state election is upon us. No Malaysian who truly cares about our future should ever give their vote to PAS or to any party or coalition that collaborates with PAS. To vote for PAS is to sanction the marginalization of ethnic minorities, to approve the destruction of their way of life, to consign our nation to backwardness, decay and decline. To collaborate with PAS is to betray everything that Malaysia stands for.

Political parties have to decide where they will now stand on the most critical issue of our time – the existential challenge from PAS. It is nothing but disingenuity to complain about religious and racial extremism and then continue to collaborate with PAS, the fountainhead of both racial intolerance and religious extremism in Malaysia.

The voters of Malacca too have a decision to make. There is little point in grumbling about the antics of PAS leaders and then giving their vote to parties that are facilitating PAS’s rise to power.

My hope is that the good people of Malacca will send a decisive message to PAS that its brand of politics is not welcome in Malaysia. The same message should be sent to parties like PPBM, GERAKAN, STAR, GPS and SAPP who appear willing to shake hands with bigots in order to gain power. Just look at how these parties have bent over backwards to avoid criticising PAS over the lottery issue – Azmin Ali of PPBM calls for more discussions on the issue while GERAKAN proposes to send a delegation to discuss the matter with PAS (after the Malacca state election, of course). What about condemning these actions first and calling on PAS to stop all this nonsense?

Vote UMNO (especially now that it has broken away from PAS) if you don’t like Pakatan Harapan but keep PAS out at all cost. We might well be able to survive yet more years of corruption and misgovernment under UMNO, but we will not survive a few more years of PAS in Putrajaya. Besides, if UMNO-BN does well on its own – as pundits are forecasting – perhaps UMNO will be encouraged to stand on its own come GE15, and PAS will be consigned to the lunatic fringes of our politics where it belongs.

The battle for Malaysia’s future could well begin in Malacca, the first statewide election in the peninsula since the infamous Sheraton Move gave PAS a foothold. Let’s hope that Malacca will be Waterloo for PAS. I’m ready with my bottle of Timah whiskey to celebrate. I might even go and place a small bet on the number 2011 (20th November) or some variation of it. – Dennis Ignatius

UMNO  needed money in the 50's,

so they started their own lottery...

Malaysia meanwhile also has a peculiar history with gambling and lottery. One notable incident happened in the 90s, when the Nipah virus outbreak required plenty of pigs to be culled and farmers to be compensated; to help fund that, the govt had set up a ‘special draw’ lottery for it.

But even before that, there had already been plenty of lotteries being held, with one of those lotteries having been run by the unlikeliest of people – UMNO. Before we get to that part, here’s a primer on why UMNO had to do so.

The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) was formed in May 1946, and as with many political parties around that time, the party operated using funds generated by donations from their supporters. Unfortunately for the fledging party, the donations collected didn’t exactly amount to billions – quite the contrary in fact.

Later on, a member of the Kesatuan Melayu Kedah would bring this up with UMNO’s higher ups, and suggested that running a lottery would help the party raise more funds. He wasn’t alone though. After his proposal, the Secretary General of the Perak Malay Alliance also called for UMNO to run a lottery, after their own attempt to do so was shut down by the Jabatan Agama Perak.

They argued that while there were some ulama (Muslim scholars) who forbade gambling and the lottery, the Malay community at the time were in dire economic conditions. As such, if UMNO were to run a lottery, it would be done with the intention that the funds collected would be used solely to help the welfare of the Malay community, especially those in need.

“We need funds to run UMNO smoothly. We have big plans for welfare work but UMNO has so far been handicapped by lack of funds. We cannot always depend on others to help us,” – Naim bin Sukram, UMNO Youth Member, in 1952, as quoted from The Straits Times

Now they weren’t the only political party in town considering running a lottery to help raise funds. The Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) had also began their own welfare lottery to garner funds in 1950 – and it was wildly successful.

Their welfare lottery allowed the party to aid the Chinese locals resettle into the ‘New Villages’ by helping folks rebuild their houses and community. Over $16 million would be raised from MCA’s lottery, with $9.5 million being used as prize monies, while MCA used the rest for welfare. The British however forced an end to the MCA welfare lottery, claiming that ‘no political organisations in this country should be allowed to become too strong or too powerful financially’.

Nevertheless, the success of MCA’s welfare lottery would be enough to convince UMNO’s top brass that their own welfare lottery would have a good chance of succeeding (perhaps unlike winning the lottery itself). And so…

The first UMNO welfare lottery would be drawn in June 1953. It soon became clear that many in UMNO wanted a welfare lottery. After a few years of UMNO divisions calling for it, at the 7th UMNO General Assembly, it was finally official: UMNO would run their own welfare lottery.

Originally, they had planned for the first lottery to be drawn on the 7th of June, 1953. But because it clashed with the month of Ramadan, it was later pushed back to the 19th of June. The idea was that the UMNO welfare lottery would be run roughly 4 times a year, with the first run having 200,100 lottery tickets printed in Penang. The lottery tickets were sold at $1 each, and the lottery agents selling them would get a 7% commission from the total they sold.

And the prize monies weren’t too shabby either. According to the journal we found, that first lottery’s prize pool was:

First prize: $18, 340.66

Second prize: $5,502.20

Third prize: $1,834.06

Fourth prize: $366.80 x two winners

Fifth prize: $183.41 x six winners

As for the tickets that didn’t win, that was considered as a donation to the party for them to use for welfare purposes. And that’s apparently exactly what it was used for to, as funds from these lotteries would go on to help with various things from funding scholarships at the Malay College Kuala Kangsar to helping the tuberculosis fund at the Lady Templer Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for UMNO’s welfare lottery. It was reported that there were quite a number people who lost their tickets. There’s even a teacher by the name of Cikgu Salleh who seemed to somehow lose 104 tickets during a bus ride in Malacca. There were even cases of lottery agents bending the rules somewhat in trying to sell more tickets.

“A Chinese shopkeeper named Cheok Lay Lock had been approached by an UMNO welfare lottery ticket agent… who offered him an UMNO membership and privileges if he bought a lottery ticket,” – Abu Hanifah bin Jamil, translated from UMNO Malaya Lottery 1946 – 1969

Missing tickets and shady lottery agents aside, there’s also perhaps the elephant in the room to address with UMNO’s welfare lottery: was it halal or haram? Well, one thing was for certain – the ulama faction within UMNO were not happy that they organised a lottery. It would lead to the formation of PAS...

As mentioned earlier, the very idea of an UMNO-run lottery was bound to hit a nerve with the religious academics in the country. A number of prominent religious scholars even got together in Kuala Kangsar to discuss the matter, but they would not reach a unanimous decision about it.

While some like the then-Terengganu Mufti Tuan Yusof al-Zawawi were of the opinion that it was halal, others such as the then-Penang Mufti Syeikh Abdullah Fahim were adamant that it was haram. Indeed, it was said that a majority of the religious scholars in the country felt that way too.

Even within UMNO itself, tension was brewing. Haji Ahmad Fuad Hassan, who was at that time the head of UMNO’s Religious Affairs Bureau, was already not a fan of Tunku Abdul Rahman’s love of cars, poker and racehorses. And now with UMNO organising a lottery, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He and several hundred other ulama would attend the 3rd Ulama Congress in 1951, and at that congress, a new party was formed: the Persatuan Islam Se-Malaya.

Despite the controversy, it met its aim of helping the people.The welfare lottery would see itself continue for the better part of 30 years, before eventually being phased out by the late 1980s. And as far as we know, no political party in Malaysia has tried to run a lottery ever since (but do let us know if we missed out on any).

That being said, while definitely contentious, the lottery could be said to have achieved its goal – to improve the welfare of the people. Even at the very first one in 1953, the influx in funds helped with people’s education and healthcare. Don’t just take our word for it either:

“The money raised from the lottery helped fund social welfare for the Malay community, such as detainees, healthcare, education and so forth. As such, this financial aid at least did help lift the dire situation that plagued the Malay community during the mid-20th century,” – Abu Hanifah bin Jamil, translated from UMNO Malaya Lottery 1946 – 1969 - Raymond Saw

cheers.

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